MADISON, Wis. (WSAU) – The state Supreme Court has granted a new trial for former state Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen convicted of illegally campaigning on state time.
The court overturned two lower court decisions and ruled 6-0 that Jensen can be tried in his home county of Waukesha instead of Madison, where the alleged offenses occurred.
The Republican Jensen was one of five former legislators charged in 2002 with illegally campaigning on state time, and his is the only case that’s still pending.
Jensen was convicted in 2006 in Madison of three felonies and a misdemeanor.
But an appeals court later ordered a re-trial on the felonies because the judge refused to let one of Jensen’s key witnesses testify. In 2007, the Legislature responded to the campaigning scandal by approving a series of reforms that resulted in the creation of the Government Accountability Board.
As part of those measures, they voted to allow legislators accused of state government crimes to be tried either in Madison or their home counties.
Prosecutors said the law didn’t exist when Jensen was first charged, so he could not take advantage of it – and lower courts agreed.
The Supreme Court reversed those rulings this morning.
Former Assembly Speaker David Prosser was the one justice who abstained.
The original prosecutor, Dane County D-A Brian Blanchard, will become an appeals judge in August. And the chief prosecutor in Waukesha, Brad Schimel, said the case will overwhelm him. He says his offices don’t have enough space to store all the paperwork in the nearly eight-year-old case. And Schimel says it will take him months to get up-to-speed in the case.
State Attorney General J-B Van Hollen has long supported a plea bargain for Jensen.
